


POV: I See A Circle

by SpoonerizeSwiftness (SplickedyHat)



Series: Splickedydrabbles: The Tumblr Request Collection [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Abolished Hemospectrum, Bigotry & Prejudice, Gen, Mentions of Prostitution, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/SpoonerizeSwiftness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request: From 'A Heavy Crown'; the Second Coming of the Signless Sufferer from Gamzee's perspective.</p><p>You are not safe.  And you are afraid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	POV: I See A Circle

You know you’re dumb, and you can’t ever understand exactly how huge the stuff all goin’ on is.  But you don’t understand how it can possibly be huger than the faces all lookin’ at you.  So many people.  How are there so many of them, all those golds and browns (never so chocolate and rich and beautiful like your flushed brother, never quite so) all those golds and browns and greens and teals.   

They talk.  Your new matesprit is spinnin’ words in a mighty way, but you do see the way his wings flick and the nerves to the twitch of his head.  (You seen him nervous plenty times. Plenty motherfucking times, happier times than these.) He’s still so nervous in front of all these people as want him to be an emperor, and you pity him so hard for what he wants to be it almost hurts.

He calls up Karkat.

Karkat steps ahead, and you are left alone behind, hands all tight, breathing deep to stay still and not follow on his heels.  You cling to his hand though, and that you don’t let go.  

When Tavros says your name, you almost don’t understand it, you’re so tense listenin’ for it.  Eyes turn to you.  You look face to face to face, and remember how people hissed words you didn’t understand to you ( _you understand them now, got your schoolfeed on, choked that fucking schoolfeed down and you got your knowing on of new words, slut, whore, pail-for-hire_ ).  Some of them angry.  Some of them confused, interested, tryin’ to figure you out.  Some of them…familiar.  ( _He was kind, didn’t hurt you, but he wouldn’t look at you either and you left without a word, she was sad and cold to you, but she handed you a caegar to do whatever you wanted.)_

( _Slut, whore, pail for hire)_

“ _Is that a purpleblood_?”  Someone asks out there, meant for your ears, meant to cut and hurt, and you hold on to the hot of Karkat’s hand and don’t say a word as more questions rise up.  Tavros is bowing his horns down a little like he’ll charge them for you, Karkat is tense all up and down his short span, but you can’t hurt from this anymore.  You been hurt, but you didn’t feel it then and now you know you should’ve been it’s too late.

And then Karkat lets go of you and his voice  _echoes_.  All the words they could ever say matters less than when he raises his voice to the wideness of the room, all those faces turned up to you.  

"Here’s an idea!"  He shouts, and they all stop muttering those words you’ve learned and turn to listen to him instead.  He steps up into their eyes.  He turns their looking away from you. 

"…here’s an idea," he says again, and then he hands out an idea that seems like a pretty good one to you;  _don’t hide like a coward_ and _saving lives is good_  and wow, yeah, if you eat your own self,  _is_  it gonna come back out again?

Motherfuckin’ miraculous, the great ideas he comes up with.

( _You know what this is,_  the other corners of your pan whisper, the part of you that shakes free first from the drugs, that always shakes free first.   _You hear him protecting you and you’re too scared to deal with what he’s saying for you so you hide, don’t you?  You hide.  Listen to all the grand words, the things he’s throwing out to the whole universe you’re too stupid to put into words.)_

(Listen to him.)

 _"If you have a problem with my moirail_ ,” says your palest brother, and you remember how he trusts you and it hurts to think on.  ”…you have a problem with me.  Stand up like someone who isn’t a hornless quivering heap of runny hoof-beast shit and YOU FUCKING TELL ME, FACE TO FACE that when our ancestors fought to free your sorry asses from the hemospectrum they wanted you to put it right back where it was you massive festering BIGOTED FUCKWAD!”

Uh, wow.  Fuck.  That is some purely salty motherfuckin’ business he’s flinging around up there.   _Ancestors_ , that’s a thing you recall, another thing you’ve taken schoolfeeding on.  His ancestor, with the miracle blood like his.  His ancestor, as made the red book.  (His ancestor, killed by a man whose story rang somehow deep in your thinkpan like someone trying to tell you a joke you can’t quite catch a punchline to).  The book’s burned into your pan now, its words  as speak on things even, things true and level and troll helping troll, you remember them all.

…you don’t need the job with them he's offering though, so even though you hear the first word and know you could win this game, you keep trap shut, flap pinned.  You know every line he speaks to them—you like the line about circles (a rainbow in a circle, and his candy color right next to the color of the old empress—miracles).  You like the one about children, colors, about helping each other up, and it makes you think of a time you got pushed down in the road, yelled at with words you didn’t understand then; a woman all thin, tired eyes, came up to you and held out a hand to you, and you found she worked a work like yours.  You traded stories on pailmates and laughed until she got called away.

You never knew her color, and you don’t see as it should matter.

You know the Lines of Cancer too, for all they make you considerable less happy.  They make Karkat unhappy too, all angry, tight little lines and snarls that sound like something’s hurting him inside, but the faces watching you, they brighten right up.  They darken right down.  They all bare tooth and snarl, and you can feel them lookin’ for things as they can hurt and Karkat raises his hands and  _roars_  to them, like the tongue of something bigger than he is, like a wild animal, like some ancient priest raising the brethren faithful to hilarity and riot.  They’re full of heat and fire, searching out cool blood to quench in.

You are not safe, and you are afraid.

And then your palemate holds up a single hand, and that tiny gray hand you’ve held and kissed and known, that hand that’s touched you and brought you hard back into yourself, stops the storm so you could hear your own pusher, pumping hard into silence.

“Tell me who said…I don’t see a spectrum.  I see a circle.”

And you understand, you know what he’s done, you see how he lifts them up just to bring them down hard to the very core of him, to the red-hot flushed heart of that red book.  You  _are not safe_.

You are not afraid.

"The Sufferer," you say, and your palemate turns back to look at you with a look you can’t take to pieces, can’t get a hold on.  Something like he’s a second from tears, something like he’s about to scream again, something like he’s lost everything he ever wanted.  Something like he’s won.  

( _He opens his mouth and speaks unto you, red eyes on fire.  He speaks unto you,)_ "Say it again."


End file.
